If starting a podcast has been a long-cherished, then hosting the same with WordPress will help you realize it without much hassle. In this blog post, we shall look at the entire process and provide you a step-by-step guide to add the podcasts to your WordPress website. We shall also look into the details of how podcasting works, choosing quality equipment and popular media hosting services, along with some insider tips on optimizing podcasts for maximum impact and reach.
World of Podcast
An audio series segregated in the form of episodes that can be streamed or downloaded using various applications and platforms. For the podcast, you’ll need the audio file along with an RSS feed, which is in-built in WordPress. This is a big reason why professional podcasters prefer WordPress over other platforms.
Another big advantage of using WordPress is that it offers seamless connectivity of your podcasts to applications such as Soundcloud, iTunes, Stitcher, etc. All this will provide you multiple benefits like increased exposure and the opportunity to grow the audience.
Podcast Setting
To start with your podcast, you must have:
- A WordPress blog or website for informing your target audience about the podcast
- Equipment for recording and editing the podcast
- Podcast publishing tools for maximizing exposure
The domain name and blog/website hosting
If you want your website or blog to include advanced functionalities and design, the self-hosted WordPress is the most appropriate platform. You get the option of choosing from a wide range of themes, along with numerous plugins. Additionally, you get the opportunity to customize the site in any manner you deem fit.
You need to purchase a domain based on your choice and availability. While there’re numerous premium-quality hosting services like SiteGround, BlueHost, A2 Hosting, you must choose one based on your requirements and budget. Website hosting can be done with any shared-hosting service provider offering some basic and advanced features.
Choosing the Media Hosting Service
You can’t make the mistake of hosting audio files on the web hosting server as that would consume a major part of your resources. Audio files are larger, and they will eat up the server resources resulting in a slower website and poor user experience. Thus, for delivering a rich user experience, you will need to use media hosting services that can host all your audio files. Some of the most popular ones include the following:
- Libsyn
- Podbean
- Blubrry
- Spreaker
Over the past few years, podcasters have reposed their faith in the media hosting services provided by Blubrry. Every podcaster points to certain benefits that Blubrry offers, which include a highly-optimized WordPress podcasting, huge community support, features like SEO tools, multiple audio/video players, podcast statistics, GooglePlay and iTunes optimization, etc. The high-quality of service offered by Blubrry helps in delivering clean content that loads without any delay.
Essential Equipment for Podcasting
Microphone: Well, it’s quite obvious that a microphone is at the top of the list of equipment needed for podcasting. However, just a microphone won’t do as you need a great one to produce quality podcasts that offer a good-listening experience.
Audio recording software: You need to have audio recording software for recording as well as editing the podcasts. Audacity is a great option for accomplishing both the tasks without any hassle, and the best thing is that it’s free for both PC and Mac.
Publishing Podcasts on your WordPress Blog or Website
After recording the first episode of your podcast, you can go ahead and publish it on your WordPress site. Log in to the WordPress dashboard and go to the plugins menu and click on the Add New button. Look for PowerPress and install this plugin created by Blubrry.
Once the installation and activation of PowerPress are completed, you’ll be able to view the new item on the left-hand sidebar of the WordPress dashboard.
You will be able to configure the Blubrry hosting via the PowerPress plugin by clicking the settings menu. This will eventually take you to the Blubrry Services Integration.
PowerPress Plugin’s Blubrry Services Integration
You’ll have to enter the Blubrry username and password for accessing the Blubrry services integration. For the Podcast Settings, you can enter the program title, which will appear as the main title for the podcast.
Similarly, for the Apple settings using the PowerPress plugin, you will need to provide the iTunes Program Subtitle, iTunes Program Summary, iTunes Category, iTunes Explicit, and iTunes Type. By using the iTunes Image settings, you can set the artwork and image you want to include in your podcast.
PowerPress plugin also lets you create the settings for the blog pages and posts. Using the Display Media & Links, you can select the default location for the podcast player as well as media links. The default settings put the player below the content of a page; however, you can always put it above the published content.
Disabling this option is also possible, and you would just need to manually add the shortcode for better control over the player’s placement. After making the necessary configurations, you need to save the changes by clicking on the button “Save Changes” located at the bottom section of the settings page.
How to upload audio files to Blubrry?
You need to upload the audio files to your Blubrry account before you can publish it as a podcast. For this, you need to log in to your account and then go to the podcaster dashboard, and within the podcast hosting menu, you must click on Upload New Media Files.
Once the uploading is complete, you can add it to the WordPress site. Next, you need to configure your podcast player.
Adding the Podcast to your WordPress Website
This is the final step towards publishing your podcast on your WordPress website, and you can do that by adding a new post. Go to the edit post section and look for the podcast episode part, and here you need to add the link to your media file. Click on the folder icon and find the file, or you can manually enter the media URL.
You can now go on to add more details to the post by adding a title, description, and also the PowerPress shortcode for embedding the media player. Now, click on the ‘Preview’ button to check how it will look when published. Read just and publish!
